Our garden hedgehogs

I know exactly how you feel jeannie. My daughter is very worried about a tiny one who visits with mum every evening. They are keeping an eye on him to see whether he reaches the required weight soon.

Oh don't feel silly re your sadness.. Jeannie..it's wonderful that you care so much...

I would be just as said Jeannie. I hope your hedgehogs come back, but it is still sad that that little one was killed.

sad not said! I clicked post message instead of preview, sorry.

It's fantastic that you have had hedgehogs visiting to feed.

Last year, we were delighted (and privileged) to have several sightings of a very large, plump and beautiful hedgehog in our garden. Subsequently we found her run over on the road busy road outside of our house. I am unashamed to say that we felt very sad at this. Like all her kind didn't stand a chance on the roads.

Sorry to lower the tone...…
I used to sit in the trees at the end of our garden in the evenings, sometimes in the dark, just catching my breath after busy days with work/children/life. Sometimes I would hear rustles and something moving about, and I thought to myself it was a hedgehog or possibly a hedgehog family.
I started to take Spike hedgehog food with me and leave the dish, feeling very happy that it was all eaten by morning and picturing in my head moving the dish nearer and nearer the house so we could all watch from the window.
One evening I took a torch in the hope of catching a glimpse of the dear little hedgehogs snuffling around.

It was a family of rats.

I ran indoors screaming.

Idiot.

That's very sad. We do get attached to "our" hedgehogs and even birds too.
Don't forget to put down very shallow almost flat trays of water.
Every night in the very hot summer of this year a small hedgehog made its way straight to the water I had put out for it and took a long drink.
He didnt see us sitting a few feet away relaxing after our meal.

There is a group which weighs hedgehogs regularly in parks at night. Sadly their records show that the hedgehog numbers are decreasing.

You are lucky to have hedgehogs at all. I haven't seen one for years. Dead or alive.
A long time ago I disturbed one hibernating in a big clump of brash/ grass in a corner of my garden. I tried to replace the clump but I never saw my hog again.
I would have cried too jeanie99
Quite funny about your rat family
Dontaskme I'd have been appalled too. Though even rats are part of the eco system.

Sadly a lot of these creatures are disappearing.
We came back home here in Feb., after 18 years in SW France, and some of the species we'd seen in the early years gradually disappeared.
Hedgehogs - I once found one sleeping in a pile of old blankets under the stairs - left her there. But often seen run over on the rural roads.
Fireflies - I used to go out for walks in the dark and at first usually saw one or two. But later none.
Bats - we had a barn where they slept and sitting out in the evening I watched them swooping about, catching mosquitoes ets etc. Some hibernated behind the shutters.
But in the last year, only a few.
Frogs and toads - there was a species called midwife toads which carry the young on their backs and make a strange beeping sound. They disappeared altogether. But we had a large brown toad who used to come in throught hopen door and drink from the cat's dish.
Not to mention the various bird species which became more rare eg hoopoes, golden orioles, woodpeckers, black redstarts, chaffinches etc.
It's happening in a lot of places, imo caused by our rural land being over farmed and over treated with chemicals. Plus removal of hedging.
What can we do about it? Sorry for rambling, but I find it very upsetting.

I sympathise Fennel. I miss sparrows and starlings that used to be very common.
Farming practices and pesticides are partly to blame but also I'm sure paving over gardens up and down the country contributes to the loss of habitat and it often causes flooding because there is no longer soil for drainage.

The birds in my garden are being reduced in front of my eyes, by a Sparrow Hawk!.
Before anyone asks, no, I don't get a thrill out out of seeing one of the Blackbirds I have been nurturing all winter, get carried away screaming. Nor am I excited when I hear a Magpie cackling, searching the hedgerows for nestlings. There are far more songbirds killed by predators than the RSPB ever admit.